Forum registrations are not automatically activated; please email us and we will manually activate your account. If you request a password change and do not receive a response, please
send us an email. More forum instructions are here.

Want to comment or talk? Please join in on the forum. But if you have a specific question or issue for Dwarven Forge, please ask us directly.
While we read the forum, we don’t catch everything and we want to give you an answer!

Forum members who have supported Dwarven Forge Kickstarters receive badges. KS6.66 badges will not be posted until after the Pledge Manager ends. Click here to read more!

close

If you have backed previous Kickstarters and don't see the appropriate badges, please email us webmaster@dwarvenforge.com
and please include your Forum email address and username. We will update your account and let you know we've done it.

We automatically update badges for our current Kickstarter about 2 months after the Kickstarter ends based on a match between your Forum email and your backer email. If your Kickstarter email does not match your Forum email, or your order has not been completed at the time we do the update, we apologize that your badge will not be automatically activated. Please contact usand we'll fix it!

'Is a extended open PM a good thing for DF?'
Ignoring the grammar how do we measure good for DF?

More sales ? and therefore more funds
More time to provide more info to backers ?
More good will from backers ?

Another pertinent question 'Is an extended open PM a good thing for backers?'
Again how do we measure that ?

More time to save money to spend in the PM to buy more stuff?
More time to make an informed decision on what to pledge for?
More time to get better info from DF?

The one thing I would not like to see is that production/delivery is delayed due to the extended PM, but DF have already said that the extended PM will not impact this. - but it cannot help.

The only thing I think has a significant impact is the ability for backers to save more money to spend in the PM, another monthly pay check etc. This has to be good for both DF and backers.

Personally I am in a position where this has reduced impact for me, another month will not mean I have more money to add to my pledge. But I know from backer comments that it does very much affect them.

With regards to PM money not adding to KS SGs, whilst true, I am prepared to believe that the money held back from the KS to put into the PM is minimal at least for DoD. Extra money added to the PM will be mostly from extra paychecks and changes of mind.
For Castles this was different as DF added and restructured Add-ons so making it impossible for backers to know what they will finally pledge at the end of the KS.
I added another 40% of my pledge in the Castle PM as I decided I need more Castle and about 2% in the DoD PM.

In regards to 'making up your mind', 'its complicated' requiring the PM to be open longer, I believe its as complicated as you want to make it, for me Castles and DoD was simple and CBS was complicated all for different reasons.

CBS was my first foray into DF and I did not know what I wanted other than as much as possible. This was the one I used the cool backer spreadsheets (thanks to those XL techo mages) to get as many floors and then calculated how many doors and roofs I then needed.
Castles I knew exactly what I wanted to build as a minimum, so pledge level and how many add-ons were calculated and pledged during the KS and then pledged for a whole lot of cool shit on top in the PM!
DoD was even easier I wanted cool shit to add to my CBS and Castles and get some dungeon to boot. This one I tried to be cheap, no real budget in mind, but was inspired by the awesomeness of the Lavabridge encounter, the highest of cool factors that was Gorgon Tiers and the sickness that was the Temple of Syssul. So ended up being not so cheap

So getting back on topic, The longer the PM is open is great for DF.

For the backer it gives us extra problems, more time to agonise what to pledge for, to try more variations in the spreadsheets.

More often than not the decision you made at the end of the PM you could have made at the start, but you know you got time to change it and when you do change it, it is because your mindset is a little different as your imagination tells you what you could do with add-ons you have not selected, or the spreasheet tells you that you can have more wall or more floor with different add on combinations.

You tell yourself 'glad I was able to make that change', but a week later you may make a another change, possibly reversing your first change as your mindset changes again.

The point being (yes I am getting there) is that the more time you have the more changes your going to make, but if you did not have that much time, your pledge will still be largely the same but your not second guessing yourself for as long.

My attitude to any PM is do it early, get it done so you know you have not forgotten to finalise your pledge in the PM. This applies less to DF as its more of a way of life than just a product KS.

Apologies for the long rambling nature of this post, yes I did review and edit it several times before posting but I am now past caring .......... what was the subject again ?

I pledged an additional 50% in the past few KSers if that's any indication of how much might be coming in after the KS campaign closes...

I've found that there just isn't enough information or time to make an educated pledge during the campaigns, although KS5 was the most complete at campaign close in recent history (KS2-4 added a fair amount of new stuff in the PM).

So here is a question is if DF did a dungeon for KS8 or KS9 and in included a more RoTA type tile do you think that would bring pledgers in? Would it bring you in?

Perhaps I should have said I liked the vaulted look and was a bit low on KSI, which is more true. For example if the next one is caverns, it will be harder to draw me in for a lot as I am pretty happy with my caverns. The one good thing about my DF addiction is I can cut out large parts of a KS I just do not want and that makes keeping in some kind of a sane budget a lot easier. After I cut burrows, temple, passages, and terrain trays the rest was a lot more manageable.

If KS6 is something like "Welcome to the Wilderness" with a 4000$ all-in Mother Nature pledge or something, I will seriosuly buy a small base pledge

I hear what you are saying.

Personally I would have been ignorantly happy if the Lava Bridge had turned out to be the finale encounter in KS5 and the boss monster was a huge lava sea serpent type creature that came out of the lava after the party had crossed the bridge. But then we never would have had burrows, the forsaken temple, jade pieces or Sysuul. Ignorance would have be bliss and a lot cheaper.

To me, filling inthe gaps will seem to lead to a more chaotic offering.

Something along the lines of a smaller overall theme (Port? Mine? The Undercity? ) with subsets that fit into the previous sets-- Expanded sewers/alleys, specific cityscapes like market.

If KS6 is something like "Welcome to the Wilderness" with a 4000$ all-in Mother Nature pledge or something, I will seriosuly buy a small base pledge or a couple of add-ons and be done with it. Could buy the stuff in the webstore down the road if desired. I have not even been able to experiment much with all I have gotten the past couple years, with the huge amount of KS5 stuff yet to come. Some of the castle stuff is a little wonky. Would be nice to see that ironed out before they start designing hundreds of new complicated pieces.

I will not have the time or space, let alone the disposable income, to drop well into four figures again next year. I want to build with what I just bought the past 2 years before buying a whole new enormous load of stuff again. I am so glad they have pushed the boundaries of creativity, modularity, and art these last 3 campaigns, but there needs to be some room to breathe for everyone I think.

I did not think after low number of backers in KS4 that KS5 would do so well. But not only did it do very well with number of backers and with over all dollars pledged during the KS but I keep hearing that people added at least a little more if not a lot in the PM. I just figure that DF wowed so many of us with what they brought to the table.

Baring another recession in the USA I figure if they keep wowing us again the next KS will do good even if we almost all say we want small and simple now because we almost all said after KS4 we wanted KS5 to be small and simple and small and simple KS5 was not.

I did go about the same as castles and smaller than KSIII by a factor of three retail included.

This was in no way a small kickstarter, filling in the gaps so people could go small. Not easy to go small when there is a 3600 pledge level especially when it is a reasonable 3600 considering what you get. But again how long can this be sustained. I know I am getting near saturation and only went as big as I did here because of the vaulted look. WIthout that I would have been sub 400 even with shipping to Japan.

But maybe you are right and people will keep tossing money at DF, which is a good thing for them to keep shooting for.

so I now have my Dungeon/Cavern/City/Castle core collection. Next year really,really needs to be smaller scale to "fill in gaps" and improve on quality of offerings in all the systems.

I hear what you are saying but while you may say core collection is Dungeon/Cavern/City/Castle.

Another customer could say I have my Dungeon/Cavern but a still need my Elven glade and Dwarven keep sets

Or I have my City/Castle but I still need my ships and islands sets

Or I have my Cavern/Mountain but I still need my river/lakes and forest set

I remember when so many of us said after KS4 that we just need KS5 to be smaller, simpler and fill in gaps and DF ended up giving us a KS with two new a new dungeon styles (vaulted and forsaken), a new passage system, a elevation system, a burrow system, a optional magnetic system, a load of led and magnetic stuff and even some miniatures. And what did we do? We pledged our wallets dry, now part of that is because this KS returned to dungeons but a big part of it is because we lied, we told a big fat lie to our selves and then to DF we lied when we said we wanted less when the truth is we want more and we wanted it bad. And while someday DF will do a big KS and no one much will show up as long as they can dream up terrain that excites them as gamers they should keep doing big KS because till the day no one much shows up because we have told them with our wallets a resounding "WE WANT MORE"

if funds are raised then freebies should be given. I suppose it could be argued that the PM is not KJS, but that goes back to my point of the strong shift towards PM fundraising some KSes are doing.

I know KSes are never going to stop people from adding via PM as it is a lot of money, and when the 10% or so KS takes out is left in (minus Credit Card charges) it is even more money. Perhaps for some projects it could even be make or break money.

I would prefer if DF keeps their PMs short, not extending it over months or nearly the year Reaper is keeping their latest PM open.

I am certainty aware of the Kickstarter what is in it for me point of view, and Reaper certainly keeps their PM open so long that their KSs are much more like a preorder system.

But at this point I think the only reason Reaper, DF and a host of other companies pay KS is for exposure to new or less fanatical customers (I doubt most KS5 pledgers visit the DF forums two times everyday like I do). Reaper and perhaps even DF could do their crowd source projects as in house pre orders if it were not for the advertising/easy access that KS gives. While many KS are still true crowds funding a dreamers project, I doubt many that make it to a million dollars are just that IMO they are a sound business decision to pay Kickstarter for what amounts to advertising and the easy of use it gives pledgers.

I like the idea of DF giving us more stuff if they get heaps more money in the PM. I could see them using that to their advantage If we all knew that we would only unlock big things during the KS but that more bling and small stuff could be unlocked in the PM it could drive people to pledge more at the start of the PM and like Reaper DF could allow us to keep adding things in the PM and there by unlocking more small pieces and sets. But if they do go down that road they would be keeping the PM open even longer and that was not something you wanted.